On Monday, USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote that no negotiating sessions were scheduled between MLB and the players’ union. That remains the case, but ESPN’s Jeff Passan writes today that “MLB is working on proposals to bring to the table.” Passan’s sources believe the “earliest negotiations will ramp up this time is late January.”
Passan suggests MLB is hoping to determine what tops the players’ list of priorities: the oft-repeated “competitive integrity” anti-tanking buzzword, getting players paid earlier in their careers, or raising the competitive balance tax thresholds.
As has been reported previously, MLB’s most recent proposal had the CBT threshold starting at $214MM in 2022. MLB’s proposal had the thresholds progressing only to $220MM by the end of a presumed five-year deal. Going from $210MM in ’21 to $220MM in ’26 would be a 4.8% increase. As I’ll explain, that’d represent the union’s biggest failure yet in increasing the CBT.
Last month, I documented how the CBT thresholds have changed with each new CBA, after this tax was introduced in 1997. In 2003, the threshold was increased by 98.6% from the previous mark, jumping from $58.9MM in ’99 all the way to $117MM in ’03. That was the first of four collective bargaining agreements where CBT increases were on the table, once it was initially set at $51MM in ’97.
That set of negotiations had the CBT ending at $136.5MM in ’06. In the CBA spanning 2007-11, the players were able to get a 30.4% increase by ’11, jumping up to $178MM. But in the CBA spanning 2012-16, the players had a major loss. They succeeded only in taking the CBT from $178MM to $189MM, an increase of about 6.2%. Compared to that $189MM point, the 2017-21 CBA ended with an 11.1% bump to get to $210MM.
The players have reportedly set their opening bid for the CBT at $245MM. That implies they might hope to see it progress to around $260MM by the end of the deal. A jump from a $210MM starting point to a $260MM ending point would represent a 23.8% increase, falling neatly between the player-favoring 30% increase of ’07 and the MLB-favoring 11% increase of ’17.
The CBT is a major issue, but it remains to be seen whether the players will abandon some other more aggressive asks to prioritize it. As Passan sees it, if the two sides don’t make progress by February 1st, a spring training delay is likely. He feels that a lack of progress by March 1st “sets off the alarm” in terms of not starting the season on time, given all that must be done to be ready to play.
Suddenly my pick in the site pool of 2/22/22 for the CBA to get done looks to have been a stupid one.
Maybe 2/2/23
Pitchers and catchers report in 5 weeks!
Not necessarily. They’re purposely pushing negotiations right to the deadline as that’s the only thing that will create pressure on both sides. It could move quickly from there.
In prepping, both sides already have if this, then options already laid out. When the sides decide to get serious this will get settled. Too much money and uncertainty for this to drag on like I. prior years. Small but real chance that the pandemic and economy could make a long strike really hurt. Perhaps a shorter contract extension will be considered if there is no permanent progress. I mediated a case on Monday where the demand was $3.5m. Each side dug in and the mediator had to get creative to keep both sides at the table. End result was a $1.5m settlement. Both sides left happy but also mad. The mediator did his job well. This will resolve too provided both sides want to play on time in 22. The idea of a short term bridge deal to get beyond COVID and ensure the game is prospering might be good for both sides. Owners might be more giving if they really knew the pandemic was over and ballparks will fill, etc.
Good thinking, except how would your case have worked out if no mediator was involved? Would the two sides still be arguing? This situation cries out for an arbitrator but I don’t see where either side would agree to bringing one in, even if the outcome is limited to a one year CBA. If both sides believe they can sweat out the other, where’s the incentive?
@Dewey, yes. Fans are understandably annoyed that there’s been no negotiations, but this is all scripted, and both sides will show up at the table with their plans. They know the serious negotiations won’t begin until the pressure amps up. I remain confident that this will move quickly, although it will seem painful as it goes on over a few weeks. I’m old enough to remember every single strike and lockout in MLB going back to the early 70s when I was a kid. I don’t “feel” this CBA will lead to a draconian lockout. Both sides are making money. They’ll want to get back on the field. The MLBPA will want to start tilting things back in their direction after losing control some in recent years.
Direct negotiations are less than in the past when big money is involved. We commented on that on Monday. There will be mediators used either officially or quietly without fanfare to get the parties to talk AND listen. it takes both sides and right now they’re each posturing of leverage for when the real talks begin. They’re each asking for the moon so they won’t be hurt as bad when talks get serious. The side on Monday demanded $3.5m knowing it was a non-starter the same way my first $250k offer was only to let them know I was there with money in my pocket if they really wanted to settle.
I’m old enough too and I fully agree The two strikes that hurt me personally the most was the early 79s when Boston and Detroit didn’t play the same number of games and the Sox lost the division by .5 games and in the 90s when I had field box seats touching the Sox dugout for the first Saturday game when the strike began. Unlike those strikes when I came back, many like me today may not return if there’s a long layoff.
I believe the solution is agreeing to binding arbitration if they aren’t able to come to an agreement by a date certain, say the end of this month. Since neither side would want the issues resolved by a third party, it would light a fire under both of them to get to work. Would either side agree to such a thing let alone both? Highly unlikely, which to me is the tell. When both sides figure they can sweat out the other, conflicts have a way of not being resolved quickly.
Great post Dewey. For the 1st time in two seasons, MLB’s TV contracts are not guaranteed. That is unless the season is shortened because of Omicron, which is doubtful. That means that the owners are not going to be able to hold a hard line on most points because they start losing money the moment a game is not on TV.
The players are in a good negotiating position, because one of the first things Meyers did when he was brought on as the labor negotiator for the MLBPA is to ask all players to give up the money they get for things like likeness in games, baseball cards, and merchandise like jerseys and allow that money to be put in a fund to pay players in the event of a work stoppage. Over 4 years that amounts to $800 million. Unions always put away a small portion of dues to be used in case of strikes, and the MLBPA is no different, so the amount they have set aside for this season is probably close to $1 billion. What that means is that if, God forbid, the work stoppage does continue into April, the players will still get some pay for several months of what would be the regular season.
I think most issues are not insurmountable. Take the CBT threshold for example. Ownership started at $180 million with no increases and now are at $214 with 1% annual increase. The MLBPA started at $255 million with increases to $290 million in 5 years and now are at $245 million with 3% annual increases. They are moving towards middle ground. It will hurt for both parties, but that point is pretty certain to get settled.
Both sides seem to want some sort of lottery for draft picks in the hopes it will be a small deterrent to tanking.
On service time issues there has been no movement. In fact, the owners have made a ridiculous proposal that FA start at 29.5 years of age. That was a non-starter. It would have meant the best players, players like Trout, Soto, Tatis,Correa, and others that came into the league at 19-20; would have not have reached FA until 3-4 years after they do now. Whatever happens on this point, both sides are going to give a lot from their current positions.
In my opinion, something like arbitration starting at 2 years so the best young players get paid more sooner and the ability for what a player makes in arbitration to go down a small amount (5-10%) based on performance on the field, FA at 6 years, with rookie qualifications (130 at bats or 50 IP) or something simple like 50-54 games played being the cutoff for what constitutes a year of service time should get this done. But that is expecting people fighting over billions of dollars to be reasonable.
I think the biggest fight is going to be over changes to revenue sharing. The union wants huge changes that they say will deter tanking. The owners are in essence saying stay out of our business. Some changes are needed, but in my opinion the owners may draw a line in the sand there.
You mediated a case on Monday where there was another “mediator” ???? What was your actually job, to serve drinks?
The problem is required +like teachers or police who Theoretically cannot legally strike, I don’t think binding arbitration will be agreed to.
I represented the general contractor in a work related construction accident. Without boring you with details, I normally transfer responsibility to the employer but this time the GC bought insurance force everyone.
BlueSkies… The incentive is to avoid a season delaying strike at all costs. Most of us who follow this site are serious fans, and though it would be eye rolling for us, we (probably?) wouldn’t permanently lose our interest in the game. However, there’s a huge swath of people, already unable to attend games because of the outrageous cost, who may not come back. If they actually try and “sweat each other out”, MLB is in for a mighty rude awakening. There’s just too many other entertainment options now.
Problem here is there is no mediator to force a compromise.
Mediators can’t force anything since their role is non-binding. A third party though will likely get involved at some point again either officially or behind the scenes.
@rondon. I’m sure we’ve all seen situations where you’d think simple self-interest would result in finding solutions to disputes, but on and on they go anyway. When that happens the reason is generally because one or both sides believe they hold the high cards and can achieve some sort of total victory (as if that would even be a good thing). This is the mentality that has sadly taken over the entire country and it feel like baseball is on that same road. FWIW, I can well afford to go to games, so it wouldn’t be costs that deter me so much as the disconnect I’m feeling on account of the fans-last attitude I see more and more.
Mediators can force a solution if both side agree to binding arbitration. I’m not kidding myself into believing that either side would agree to such a thing, I am only saying that if they are serious about not jeopardizing the season and not further antagonizing the fan base, they should agree to it.
Isn’t that what the current arbitration process is? Player throws out his number, club throws out their number. They either settle, or have a third party arbitrator come to a number? It’s rare that it actually gets to the arbitrator? Forgive me if I am mistaken.
You aren’t mistaken. Players and owners are already familiar with the arbitration process. Neither side would want big issues decided by a third party so the prospect of binding arbitration would give them added incentive to work out their differences.
In the past, MLB/MLBPA have go to the Federal Mediation service, but it’s been non-binding. I don’t see either agreeing to binding. Interesting idea, though
Fans are clearly in their blindspot. And both sides are recklessly changing lanes anyway. And at least from the outside anyway, they don’t appear to give a damn.
Well the stakes are huge, but even more importantly, both sides seemingly believe they have the advantage. That’s how I read the posturing. Realistically as fans we have to know in the end we’re nothing but dollar signs to them, but it’s alway dismaying to have that point driven home. Being a fan of a team isn’t really the same as buying a product, it requires a special kind of loyalty through thick and thin that is being taken for granted.
Lol Pads Fans talking smack about someone else’s job
BlueSkies… Bingo! “It requires a special kind of loyalty through thick and thin that is being taken for granted.”
The irony is you can’t put a dollar sign on that kind of loyalty, but without it? I’m not sure there is a single franchise that could survive.
It can be sort of quantified in the way repeat customers are counted as business good will, but in baseball that good will is a different sort of animal. It takes a special kind of loyalty for fans to stick by a team that hasn’t won anything in decades. I mean nobody buys any other product made by “lovable losers.”
White Castle is on line one
Where they are telling you they’ve been delivering what their customers want for nearly 100 years. I didn’t really need it but thanks for proving my point.
“Whatever happens on this point, both sides are going to give a lot from their current positions”
The problem in this dispute is not that the union has a real priority, a grievance where the parties need to come closer to each other. The real problem is that the union has no priorities at all. Instead it has a laundry list of Twitter grievances – service time manipulation, salaries for younger players, free agency service-time, trying to force rebuilding clubs to spend on players they don’t want just to inflate salaries, draft compensation for free agents, DH in the NL, restricting playoff teams to jerk the owners’ revenues around, limiting revenue sharing between clubs, etc. etc. etc.
None of these proposals are NEEDS. All of them instead are nothing more than Twitter proposals.
There are two problems with this laundry list of Twitter proposals.
First, the MLBPA has no real priorities. When you have 100 ‘priorities’, you really have none,. Real unions who bargain collective agreements have focus on what they want to achieve. Instead, the MLBPA has the best professional sports collective agreement in the world, where players like Poor Max Scherzer sign record deals and then won’t play unless rebuilding clubs are forced to sign players they don’t want. That’s a rare luxury.
But besides the lack of any real priorities, the MLBPA seems to get its ‘proposals’ from an echo chamber on Twitter of people who know nothing about collective bargaining or labour agreement.s. If the CBT went up ‘only’ 11.1% in the collective agreement then that must be ‘bad’, because early on in the CBT’s history it went up 60%, which must be ‘good’. So if it goes up 25% then that’s a ‘compromise’.
Here’s a much better argument. The only reason the CBT should go up a single penny, is if it artificially reduces compensation. But we know there is no problem with compensation. Indeed Poor Max Scherzer just lined up for $43MM per at age 37, edging out ‘Swinging Trevor Bauer’ who will pull in his 40MM for sitting out the season. What a terrible collective agreement!
Raising the CBT a ridiculous 25% will only have the effect that the MLBPA has always sought – to end any competitive balance at all by having a club level of 260MM for the Yankees, Dodgers and Red Sox. Hopefully the owners tell them to stuff it. Rather than return to that idi0cy, even as a Red Sox fan I’d rather see the owners hang tough and tell the MLBPA to take a hike. There’s no need to increase the CBT at all, let alone 25%.
The other problem with giiving in to this nonsense is the pattern it sets for the future. There will always be Twitter proposals from the anti-mlb echo chambers, complaining about whatever collective agreement the players sign. Giving in now will just mean more of the same. I’d rather spend a year or even two without baseball, and then watch players come from the minor leagues with the MLBPA on the sidelines and busted. It’ll be sad to see careers of young good players like X and Verdugo ruined by a clown car organization like the MLBPA, but that my be the price they pay for listening to these idiots and Poor Max Scherzer.
As for Poor Max himself, I’d enjoy seeing him lose his 43MM per deal, and end up in the KBO in 2024. Maybe they’ll pay him an extra 50k a game to wear his plastic red clown nose, and reminisce about how he wanted to sit out the year to force MLB to make rebuilding clubs sign players they don’t want so salaries could be artificially inflated.. Cause he read it on Twitter.
I picked the same date. Lol. Still have a chance. The closer to spring training the closer to get a deal together
Major negotiations like this often occur at the last minute. I wouldn’t read much into the lack of meetings here in the first week of January. If they aren’t meeting in the first week of February, then we can get worried.
Imagine picking my date
With what the national debt has become and inflation has become its hard to think MLB luxury tax wouldn’t be 240 mil to start penalties? When your paying your best player 40-50 million that’s what you need?
The purpose of the CBT is to stop the large market teams from vastly outspending the small market teams. It really only becomes a factor for 6-10 teams. It has nothing to do with the natl debt, or inflation. If they raise to a level of $240mm, teams like the NYY, NYM, LAD & BOS may spend to the new level, but it will not change the budgets of most other teams.
wadffdf
Solution:
Fire Manfred.
Ditch the players.
The owners should randomly select a local little league team each year and have them play instead of these “professional athletes$,
It would be a whole heck of a lot more fun than watching these arseholes strike out at $10K/swing.
Bring the fun back to baseball!
Fart noise.
How did you even hear that? The fan is on and the door is closed.
I’ll be genuinely surprised if pitchers & catchers report on time. Come on, figure it out, it’s cold up here in Canada and pitchers-and-catchers reporting is what gets me through the final few innings of winter. Just looking at sunny Florida through the television, instead of the winter storm out the window, is reassuring. Figure. It. Out.
Working on proposals now? What have they been doing for the past 4 weeks?
Firing Ken Rosenthal?
Did he really get booted for dissing ManFraud
MLB following the MSM’s lead of getting rid of whoever doesn’t tow the company line
That just made me hate Rob Manfred even more than I already did, which I didn’t think was remotely possible.
Eh, Kenny will land on his feet, this might be good for him.
I saw Brian Kenney announcing a boxing match around Christmas.
They already have ideas written down and likely have already went through mock negotiations like a mock trial to see how things could play out. Right now they’re just at the hard ball, bluff pre-sit down stage.
Solution:
Fire Manfred.
Ditch the players.
The owners should randomly select a local little league team each year and have them play instead of these “professional athletes$,
It would be a whole heck of a lot more fun than watching these arseholes strike out at $10K/swing.
Bring the fun back to baseball!!!!!!
Russian Collusion
And gain of function research
The MLBPA did fail on getting such small increases in the CBT the last two CBA’s. As teams now treat that as a form of a cap, orchestrating to pull back under once they exceed, that cap has created the squeeze on mid-level free agents. Increasing the cap doesn’t directly cost a team money. They can elect not to go over it. That means owners will eventually cave because an increase in the thresholds won’t directly cost money, but a delay in the season will cost revenue.
The MLBPA won’t get everything they want in one CBA, but they can start turning the ship.
The owners found a way to combat the MLBPA’s historical belief that raising salaries for superstars brings up everyone. Charlie O said fifty years ago to flood the market with free agents to lower the costs. Players should see that caps and floors can work but there has to be trust. For that owners have to truly open their books. Neither is to happen herein which is sad for the sport. If there is no baseball on 03/31, all fans should stay away the first week when games resume as a reminder that without fans there is no baseball (at least in the U.S ).
How can there be trust when the owners have twice been caught colluding and refuse to open their books. We can see what the two publicly owned teams books are and what they show does not jive with what the other owners are saying.
Caps can only work if revenue is shared equally by all the teams. That is not the case in MLB.
A salary floor would stop guys like Nutting from taking a profit while having no intention of the team competing.
Pads, the system is unfair. Why is it legally ok for players’ agents to collude but not owners? The MLBPA is not a true union. if it were, seniority would dictate players’ contracts more than individual performance and individual records other than attendance wouldn’t really matter.
Darn straight, you are speaking truth
If they institute a salary floor then teams like the Pirates would probably just trade for guys like Hosmer with the Padres attaching top 100 prospects.
Its not legal for agents to collude. Read the CBA. The MLBPA is a true union. Sports unions are all set up differently because when skill levels are so unique and rare like they are in sports, pay is based on performance, not tenure. If attendance had more to do with revenue then you might have a point. It doesn’t. Its only a minor portion of revenue for MLB.
Pads. If course there’s collusion amongst agents. in the rules or not it happens. Otherwise there would be a conflict for the same agency to represent competing players. Player A signs first to set the ceiling or floor for others, etc Players collude in the NBA setting up super teams. And as you said it, sports are unique with seniority only affecting benefits and minimum pay.
LordD99: Unless MLB/owners change their view on how competitive balance is achieved, raising the CBT tax levels affects competitive balance, so I’m not sure the owners cave on CBT levels. I’m not arguing it actually achieves competitive balance, but I think they think it does at least somewhat. I am saying that it looks like CBT levels represent money and competitive balance to the owners. I doubt players care about the competitive balance aspect. What do you think?
The owners have already started the caving process on the CBT threshold. Remember, they started at $180 million and their 2nd CBT proposal was $34 million higher. The next one will be around $230 million
The CBT threshold in 2021 was $210M. So, they have only really agreed to raise it $4M so far. Let’s see what happens.
The initial offer from the owners was $180 million with no increases during the 5 year CBA and a $100 million floor. The player’s union rightly said no. They have since come up to $214 million. That is an 19% increase. Even if you start at the $210 million CBT in the previous CBA, that is an increase of $4 million in a single season. Double any of the seasons during the previous CBA.
Don’t concentrate on past agreements. More important to the next set of numbers are both sides’ expert analysis and projections of revenue and costs. It works in other sports because the owners’ books seem to be more open and the agreements are then more or less% wise tied to the numbers.
If they are too far apart on everything, why not just negotiate a deal for just 2022 while they hammer out something longer?
That will just be kicking the can down the road. You need deadline pressures to force a deal. We’ll be back in the same spot a year from now, plus the players will have lost some leverage. Owners are still dealing with the 2020 revenue reductions. The players know that and can use that to their advantage. The owners also want an expanded postseason this year due to contracts they’ve already signed with the networks.
The deal will get done. Take the medicine now.
The reason for a short term deal is the pandemic has created real risks that still exist and the owners might consider more lucrative player collective bargaining when there is proof COVID is fully behind us.
Covid will never be “fully behind us” it will just get to the point of being another flu bug and people will stop caring/panicking
The CDC has already cut the isolation period in half and by years end it will be probably be cut more.
Neither side should use this as reason for anything
The MLBPA has said that they will not grant an extension of the old CBA. Even if they do say ok to a shorter term deal, there will have to be large concessions from the owners to make even that happen. Among those the CBT and service time.
Probably true but if and when there is world assurance that game stoppage and games without fans are in the past, it will be easier to project things financially speaking.
Outfield. Such might be true but I can only tell you some things said are accurate, other times they were accurate when said buand sometimes they’re just rhetoric. On Monday, each side at various points in time threatened to leave. My “final” offer was oy until I pretended to call for more authority when I actually already had it. Here, it’s possible the union can do better long term wise if instead of another five plus year deal, they agree to a short term contract to just get through the pandemic. Such could have huge impacts on current players but be best for those next in line for free agency and in the minors waiting for MLB pay/service time. Such is another reason why the PA is not a true union.
There are states/cities that still use COVID to restrict businesses, so the owners have a very real reason to consider it.
The teams saw little in revenue reductions. Their TV contracts were guaranteed and that makes up more than half of the revenue for every team. The players took a 60% cut in salaries. Add those up and teams didn’t lose money, they simply made less profit.
No it doesn’t make up half the revenue for every team — just the large-market teams — my team MKE, gets less than $35MM a year from their local TV deal. The Brewers lost $46MM playing pandemic baseball in’20, many many teams lost more that that, some over $100MM. You don’t know what your talking about.
Between local deals and the national TV contracts, TV makes up 2/3 of the total revenue in MLB. A few teams are under 65%, but overall its 2/3. The team you are a FAN of got a $35 million per season INCREASE over their previous RSN deal which paid them $20 per year and they also received $70.83 million from national TV contracts. All guaranteed. That doesn’t include revenue sharing, which we don’t know for sure if that was paid in 2020. Debt service, stadium lease (American Family is paying more for naming rights than Attanasio does for the lease), and player salaries ($39.22 million) amounted to $74 million total. I am not sure where your claim of a $46 million loss comes from. Remember Attanasio saying in 2019 that he lost money in a season where his revenue was $295 million and his 40 man payroll was only $144.8 million? Yeah, so do I. Maybe Padsfan will believe you, but I am having a little harder time. Maybe you are REALLY Bud Selig, because no one else is his fan.
@outinleftfield
The $46MM loss was from Forbes. We do know there was no revenue-sharing in 2020 as well since it was announced as such. And of the $295MM in revenue MKE received in ‘19, $94MM of that was the TV money, far short of even half of their revenue.
Provide a link to your claim of the team’s new local TV deal giving them an ADDITIONAL $35MM/year income over their previous $24MM/year deal.
And finally a team with a $144MM payroll with only $295MM in revenue isn’t making much of a profit, if any, after accounting for depreciation, taxes etc.
I’ve tried to find information on the teams new local TV deal and haven’t been able to, so it would be much appreciated if you’d provide a link to your claim, thanks.
Just found the information on the Brewers new local TV deal — $34MM per year vs $24MM per year prior. So an increase of $10 million per year not the $34 million per year increase that you cited.
You can’t even get the simple things correct. Now we know you are really Bud Selig. The previous deal averaged out to $20 million per season. Literally hundreds of articles that say that. Provide a link to your claim that the team is making $35 million per season in the new deal since YOU were the one that made that claim. We know from the teams over the years that have been owned by public corporations that MLB teams are profitable with a 40 man roster payroll of 50% of total revenue. That means Attanasio was lying. Since he didn’t offer to open his books to back up his claim, that statement stands.
Obviously you didn’t find anything. Try the Milwaukee Sentinel. When the previous deal was signed in 2013, the GM at the time announced it was worth nearly $21 million per year.
The final year of the Brewers previous TV contract was $24 million. The 8 year deal was for $166 million total.
It was one of the lowest in baseball. Only the Marlins got less for their TV broadcasts.
The new TV deal went from $24MM to $34MM, and is reported as such. Attanasio wasn’t lying. The small operating income was legally wiped out by deductions and taxes. So he was TECHNICALLY correct in what he said. I also rolled my eyes after his comments. He should have kept quiet. But he didn’t lie.
Probably not optimal for either side because the negotiations would hang over another season, and that only hurts both sides in the court of public opinion if they come to another impasse. It’s almost certain they’d end up in the same spot, anyway. It’s usually the threat of lost revenue that forces a deal.
Currently, the owners have locked out the players. If they sign a one year deal, expect the players to strike before the playoffs begin. They won’t let the owners determine when, next time.
Nonsense. companies/ownership can always choose to stop whenever they like by shutting down everything. It’s obvious. Don’t like how the “smell” of negotiations were headed? Shut it down so what had happened before does not repeat itself.
That said.. Would be nice if more large owners would speak up more and use their clout to get this done. i can’t see a Georgie type taking what has happened the last decade plus lying down with small market owners running most of the negotiations when they are not even the teams driving the media markets MLB hypes so much as so important to the tv contracts.
Thirty owners with 75% needed to approve changes. Hard for a few smaller or bigger owners to control things.
That looks like it would only take 8 owners to prevent any changes. Do you consider 8 to be a “few”? You can control things by stopping change, too. (See congress)
The owners’ biggest negotiating blunder (so far) was putting out a proposal that was a non-starter from the beginning. Agreeing to a tiny increase in the CBT threshold while putting in a salary floor wasn’t a serious offer given flattish payrolls in recent years amid the surge in TV revenue. Valuable time and goodwill were wasted.
TV only pays for games played. All revenue was flattish over the past pandemic seasons. They need to come up with a CBT escalator based on revenue and attendance levels. If the industry lags, so does payroll. If it thrives, so does payroll.
Now they make enough on the tv deals to play all players salaries ! They are reallY ! But owners are good at convincing ( lying to) some like you and other fans that the overpriced beer khot dogs , liters of cola etc is used on player salaries and are not their own profits ! Lol
With the 2021 season beginning at reduced fan attendance, 2021 over 2019 is not a valid comparison. In the five years prior to the pandemic, MLB revenue grew 32% or about 5.7% a year. In the ten years prior to the pandemic, MLB revenue increased 76% or 5.8% annually.
Bottom line is that league-wide revenue has been rising 5%-6% annually and that should be part of player compensation. Offering 1% annual increases in the CBT threshold isn’t consistent with 5%-6% revenue increases. That’s what makes it a non-starter.
By the way, I am not pro-player or pro-owner. It is a system where all parties need to feel they are being treated fairly. I am pro-baseball.
A reasonable view. I have no idea why the MLBPA never stipulated that there had to be yearly guaranteed/indexed increases in the CBT; otherwise, they should have said no CBT.
I was stunned at how little the CBT increased in the last CBA. Worse, the MLBPA allowed the owners to put in a three-tiered CBT turning the soft cap into an even harder cap. Really bad job negotiating the last deal, which is why they brought in Bruce Meyer and reduced Tony Clark to spokesperson this time around.
During the past two season all TV money was guaranteed. MLB won’t open their books, so its impossible to base anything on revenue. Attendance is such a small part of total revenue that its a non factor.
For Love, that’s how most big money negotiations start. The players did the same thing last year with the pandemic negotiations. Don’t take either sides’ initial proposals as serious.
The players still have a case before the NLRB regarding the length of the 2020 season and a lack of good faith effort to start the season sooner. They have a good chance of winning too.
I doubt it. Such will probably be compromised but if allowed to proceed, there has never been a situation like we have here and although I’m not a CPA, I think both sides can show enough uncertainty to protect their position.
How do they have a good chance of winning? They’ll just use the same “public safety” angle that everyone else uses. Generally speaking, that offers a ton of latitude for decision making.
Its still a pending case. One the players have agreed to postpone for this CBA negotiation. The dollar figures are huge. The difference between 60 games and the 110 the MLBPA said the players were ready to play is nearly $2 billion.
That initial CBT threshold proposal from the owners was $180 million. They are not offering a salary floor now that they have proposed $214 million as the CBT threshold. They are also asking to increase the penalties for exceeding the $214 million threshold. Both proposals are non-starters.
The negotiations need to include bringing Ken Rosenthal back to the MLB Network. That was a bush league move to get rid of him.
And What the heck ever happened to Brian Kenny? He disappeared after the World Series and he was sporadic even before that.
I’ve never been a fan of Brian Kenny’s work. The less I hear from him the happier I am.
I didn’t realize either was “gone”. I thought MLB just started rerunning classic games because there was nothing else to talk about. The one who they didn’t bring back last year that was a mistake was Chris Rose. His banter with Millar made IT worth while to watch.
Just read why he’s out. If true, troubling for a network that while being owned by the league has tried to stay neutral and almost impartial. Very hard for other on screen people to provide opinions if they have to worry about censorship or their jobs. By the way, Ken’s dad was an amazing attorney who worked miracles in the Queens County courthouse. Got to work with Ed and witnessed his magic first hand.
affordablecremationservicesnewyork.com/obituary/ed…
Dewey, I wonder if he ever defended any mobsters…..Do you know by chance??
No. To my knowledge, he represented defendants and injured parties in personal injury cases. I was working for an insurer and used Ed for trials or when a specific judge or another attorney was viewed as unreasonable. His ability to know otherss in Queens County was unique.
Lord, Brian Kenny always seemed to be kinda condescending to me. He has an aura of “my opinion is better than yours”.
Brian Kenny is awful. Not because he is an “analytics guy,” but because he is one of the leading voices on analytics and seems to have no idea how to use them. He also presents the “analytics>tradition” analyses that so many old school guys will use to hate analytics which anyone who has ever worked with data knows, it can’t quantify everything and the human element has to be a part of evaluation.
Chipper, I don’t disagree. I’m actually an analytics-focused fan, going back to my first Bill James Abstract in 1982. I even at one point in my career helped move and promote various baseball stats online to begin the transfer of stats from paper to the internet. So as an analytics and data friendly fan, I don’t like that he somehow became the face of analytics for many. There’s no subtly to him. He also takes credit for things that were done by other people a decade or two prior. Kill the win? James, Thorn, Neyer, etc. all talked about how starting pitcher wins didn’t tell much of a story. That’s been known forever, but he tagged a slogan on it and seems to be taking credit for other people’s work. He’s never done any analysis on his own. He regurgitates other people’s work. He’s a TV personality, so he knows how to create interest by annoying people!
That said, his MLB Now show is unique on MLBN. It’s a platform for more intelligent discussion when he has the right guests on. I mean, I’ll watch MLB Now long before I’ll waste my time with Intentional Talk.
My point is that he’s disappeared and no one says anything, yet his MLB Now show is still promoted as his show. He still appears in promos. He, however, almost almost never there. (Well, technically, none of them are there now!) I suspect it’s Covid related. His air time started taking a huge dive going back to 2020 when Covid upset the world, including baseball. They probably cut his salary until we’re past Covid, so he in turn has reduced his hours. Just a guess. They did fire Chris Rose, they’ve now fired Ken Rosenthal, there’s a few other analysts they’ve cut loose. All budget cuts, although with Rosenthal it appears to be a Manfred thing. Maybe Kenny’s next. I find the entire Rosenthal situation distastful, so between all their staff cuts and unpredictable programming, I’m not sure I’ll be back as a fan of MLBN, especially as I’m about ready to cut the cord on cable myself.
Well said Lord, personally I kinda like BK. I am impressed that he has softened his stance on some things and has learned that players are people and you can’t quantify every aspect of a player’s value. The “cut of jib” index. Many of his ilk would never do that.
I agree, that was petty. Manfred is a truly, truly awful Commish. But I guess you’re only supposed to do fluff pieces on the job he’s doing. Someone has some thin skin it would seem.
Joe, I agree. I like Rosenthal too. I’ve always wondered whatever happened to Mitch Williams?? He was actually hilarious! He always had everybody on the set cracking up. Then, one day he vanished. I’ve always assumed that he was drinking and did something stupid, probably, but don’t remember hearing/reading about anything. It’s had to be at least 5 years now that he’s been gone from MLB Network.
@dsett75, Williams got in trouble acting like an ass at a little league game and was fired for it. But I agree he was hilarious.
Eric Byrnes is gone too.
Never like Byrnes as a player but LOVED his on camera work.
Manfred confirmed what most people already believed about his character. He also demonstrated why so many people are anti-owner – because they will do what they want to as soon as they are granted the power to do so, regardless of whether it is ethical. They are only harming the future of this sport more with all of this.
The owners will do what they want with their group of franchises? I can agree that it’s not a great look, but how many companies are going to continue to employ someone who’s putting negative things about the company out to the public?
I was never a fan of Rosenthal so I’m not too upset about his removal. I never felt he added much.
Much like this comment. Ken Rosenthal is one of my favorite journalist at the athletic, that sign stealing scandal was the work of him and Evan Drellich. Definitely a great add
I just thought of an interesting idea for the floor/ceiling topic:
Teams that go over the salary cap pay a “fine” that gets distributed to the other teams, 50% to teams in their division and 50% to teams in their league. For example, if the Dodgers go $8M over the cap, each team in their division gets $1M and the other 10 NL teams get $400k each.
Teams that are under the salary floor pay a “fine” that gets distributed to the players on the team based on games played. For example, if the A’s are $10M under the floor, each player would get an extra $400k on average. This would benefit a pre-arbitration starter a lot as it would nearly double their salary.
That is a great idea.
Add to it they only get the $$ if there is a floor that they’ve also met. Additionally, use a similar system as today where the penalties increase each year both in $ and non-$ ways.
“the MLB-favoring 11% increase of ’17”
Jeff Passan and MLBTR lip-syncing player agents and the MLBPA.
I remember the outset of the lockout when MLBTR just parroted MLBPA press releases like, ‘a lockout isn’t required by law’. This is about the same quality.
Dude, what do you expect? Mlbtraderumors reports baseball news, in addition to providing informed opinions. No reason to diss because the site uses the verbiage the newsmakers do.
I’m glad you were able to interpret what he was saying.
Fans here complain about the oddest things.
You do understand that’s exactly what journalism is *not* supposed to do, right? Using the “newsmakers words” just provides more emphasis for their specific spin.
Exactly Blue. We’ve now reached a point where some people at least think that the unquestioning parroting PR claims, no matter how ridiculous the claims may be, is reporting. One can imagine if MLB issued a PR statement how thoroughly it would be critically assessed, as it should be. By contrast, any propaganda coming from the union or player agents is treated as fact.
I didn’t talk to the MLBPA in writing this. I honestly believe the smaller CBT increase favored MLB and the larger one favored the MLBPA. Is that even up for debate?
Small amount of movement in CBT: good for MLB
Large amount of movement in CBT: good for players
I’d like to believe most of your readers understand your point, but at the same time we have to know that water being wet is up for debate these days.
I think you said more than that Tim. It’s numerically obvious that 59% increases favour the union more than an 11% one does. But 11% could still be a high increase. To say a 11% “favours the owners” is different from saying it is lower than 59%.
1) I cannot believe Tim had to expound on his explanation for this;
2) BlueSkies: Water being wet up for debate? Perfect analogy.
Bla bla bla bla……Yara yara yara yara….. Just come to an agreement already!
If you can’t agree, let the owners spend their brains out!
Thoughts on expanded playoffs? It sure was interesting to watch down the stretch of the 2020 season, but I understand the views that it watered down the level of playoff caliber teams. Would it help reduce the number of teams ‘tanking’ on the other hand?
And it was in place currently for a team salary floor to reprimand teams not spending enough on their teams salary?
There is currently no floor.
I’m not a fan of the idea. That said, I find it the most tolerable of the new ideas. Given the amount of playoff games you have to win to earn a title, if a team wins that many they earned it. I just feel it cheapens the season a bit.
Until they actually meet, there isn’t much to get excited for. Hopefully there is baseball by Memorial Day.
Raising the CBT any higher is a joke since half the teams in baseball can’t even reach it. There is way too big of a discrepancy in payrolls. Make baseball more competitive by having a salary cap (and floor) that is reasonable.
Can’t. Won’t.
Similar words with very different meanings.
The owners who believe they “can’t” (read: won’t) will just have to find a way, pay the fines or sell the team if they can’t play within the rules.
14 teams had $400 million in revenue in 2021. That means that 14 teams could have passed the CBT threshold while still making a profit. #15 was $395 million, so you may as well say half of the teams in baseball could have passed it easily.
When the small market Padres are able to pass the CBT threshold, that completely obliterates your argument.
Salary caps are only possible when there is 100% revenue sharing. As you said, that is not the case in baseball.
A salary floor is a necessity when teams like the Pirates have revenue of $285 million, but only spent $61 million on 40 man roster player payroll.
@Cincyfan85; RobM; PadsFan:
That’s not even including the teams that made less revenue, but used their revenue sharing to make profits in addition to paying for their teams’ payroll.
Put it this way, MLB shared a total revenue (50% of the total local revenue of all teams amongst all teams) of $10.3B, which provided each team an {average} of $330M! That’s enough for each team for spend up to the threshold every year and still make a profit.
There’s simply no excuse for teams to spend <$60M perennially. All the excuses by those fans are simply…excuses.
Yankeeclipper, I really like your comment. The only thing I would add to that is that MLB added $2.125 billion in revenues in 2021 from new TV deals and things like MLB Extra Innings and MLB.tv. That puts total revenue at around $12 billion or $400 million per team on average.
Why do you comment as pads fan and outinleftfield?
Because no one else will agree with him.
We found Ryan’s two new accounts. 1984 and The Observer. Didn’t like that I muted your last one? Or did they ban that one too? Well you will have to stoop even lower and make a new account Ryan.
It isn’t Ryan’s fault that you sound exactly the same no matter how many accounts you use and project your problems onto everyone else.
Oh and when you say “We,” are you referring to yourself, koamalu, outinleftfield, websoulsurfer, YourDaddy, The Padfather and BaseballIsLife?
Because there are only a couple of teams who flirt with the CBT right now there is no reason to jack it up as much as MLBPA wants.
But it needs to be a HARD “do not exceed” cap. No luxury tax, no circumvention. There needs to be a hard floor as well. Baseball will continue to have several 100 win teams who primarily get there by outbidding the other teams for top players and several 100 loss teams who tank and refuse to spend money to put at least a palatable team on the field until this basic aspect is fixed.
Let me ask: how many of you here have never recovered the level of enthusiasm that you had for baseball prior to the 1994-95 work stoppage? I never did. In the early 90s when I had no money I went to 8-10 games a year, I watched pretty much every game I could of my local team or had it on the radio when working or driving, I watched Baseball Tonight every time I was home. Now its just a little bit of my morning routine, I haven’t watched a full game in 4 years and have attended 1 game in the past 15 years.
If anything, I am more enthusiastic about baseball now than back then.
Players will not accept a hard cap but agree that only a few teams flirt with the current CBT threshold now. Last year only the Dodgers exceeded it, and only 2 other teams, the Yankees and Mets spent over $200M. Only one more team, the Astros, spent over $190M (per sportrac). But 12 teams spent less than $100M last year. If the players really want higher pay for the younger players, that may help in setting a floor without actually defining what a floor is. Many of those sub $100M teams have half or more of their rosters making less than $1M. A serious increase in league minimum salary would easily lead to payroll increases in the 25-50% range for these teams. This might cause some of these teams to have issues of profitability, but MLB can address this through revenue sharing if need be.
The Dodgers and small market Padres exceeded the CBT threshold in 2021.
The only way to have a hard cap is if you have 100% revenue sharing like they do in every other sport that has a hard cap. The highest revenue teams in baseball after revenue sharing have more than $600 million in total revenue while the 3 smallest revenue teams have around $250 million.
That so few teams are “flirting with the CBT right now” is more of an indication of collusion than of a lack of revenue needed to pass the current CBT threshold. 14 teams had $400 million or more in total revenue in 2021 and a 15th was at $395 million. All of those teams could have easily passed the CBT threshold while remaining profitable. That they didn’t is the problem.
Businesses do not seek to maximize output subject to a constraint that profit must be above zero. They maximize profits.
Claiming that there is something off because owners with billions of invested dollars (and/or can sell the team for billions) choose not to forego a return on this investment is goofy. If I have an asset I can sell for $1 billion better be getting me a return of at least $50 mill per year
Businesses do not seek to maximize output subject to a constraint that profit must be above zero. They maximize profits.
Claiming that there is something off because owners with billions of invested dollars (and/or can sell the team for billions) choose not to forego a return on this investment is goofy. If I have an asset I can sell for $1 billion better be getting me a return of at least $50 mill per year or I am putting my wealth elsewhere. even allowing for the utility of owning a team, pretty much nobody is going to give up enormous investment returns to win, and even then, not very often and not for long.
Baseball is not a typical business. It is a monopoly.
Yes there is – what’s the reason? The other sports so frequently cited as the mode by which MLB should model its economics are less successful. They don’t have the parity MLB does, and that’s allegedly the sole purpose for finding it their way (100% revenue sharing).
Teams are using the fake ceiling as a reason to reap more revenue and not pay, which does not make the sport or competition better. As you can see from the perennially tanking teams, it only hurts the sport. Fans actually believe that MLB teams can’t afford it! Man, they’ve truly got people snowed, while increases prices on everything.
Eat up with greed on all sides…
MLB teams spent an average of approximately $129m on opening day 26-man rosters in 2021. Why not make a cap of $150m with a floor of $130m? That would be a raise.
That’s logical and it’s what the other sports did a decade or two ago. Set the thresholds so salaries increase from year to year. Revenue’s go up, cap limits go up by the same percentage. Salaries have been decreasing a bit in recent years, so your suggestion would actually benefit them. Baseball and the PA are behind the times, so nothing probably comes of it but more infighting and hatred.
Its totally illogical in MLB.
MLB doesnt share revenue the same way as other sports. NBA, NFL, and NHL teams get nearly 100% of their revenue from national deals, TV and merchandise is all in one pool. Then its divided equally.
In MLB the teams get the majority of their revenue from local deals, TV, ticket sales, radio, and sponsorships being the biggest ones. Being lucky enough to have a team in the bigger markets means more money from those local TV and radio deals. For example, the Yankees make more money from the radio deal than the Marlins did up to 2019 from their TV deal. The Dodgers made more money in 2019 from their local TV deal than the bottom 10 teams combined. That money is not shared with other teams. The visiting team gets 35% of the gate.
There is revenue sharing paid by a half dozen teams, but it doesn’t even come close to making up the difference between a TV deal like the Yankees or Dodgers have and the ones that teams in smaller markets like Cincinnati, KC, Milwaukee, and others get.
Until there is 100% revenue sharing, meaning all money brought in related to baseball games is put in a pool and shared equally among all teams like it is in the other majors sports, there can be no salary cap and the floor has to be under but close to what 50% of revenue is for the smallest market teams. The smallest market teams had around $250 million in revenue in 2021. Teams like the Pirates and Padres were between $285 and $305 million. The Dodgers, Yankees were over $600 million and 4 other teams were over $500 million.
How do you make it fair without equal distribution of revenue?
“Passan suggests MLB is hoping to determine what tops the players’ list of priorities: the oft-repeated “competitive integrity” anti-tanking buzzword, getting players paid earlier in their careers, or raising the competitive balance tax thresholds.”
These are ALL priorities by the players. The trick for the owners is seeing if the players will give on any of this and if so, what will they give on.
FWIW, my opinion is that the give should be on the CBT threshold. The reason we see teams tank is that the majority of the league cannot spend with the big boys (Yankees, Dodgers, Red Sox), and several teams can’t even spend half of what they do and still maintain any level of profitability. This financial inequality leads to a competitive inequality. So “tanking” is about the only strategy they have to eventually field a competitive team. Raising that threshold significantly is only going to worsen the situation, not improve it. As we saw prior to the lockout, plenty of teams were throwing money around, so only modest raises in the CBT should not hamper the top players getting paid.
Players should stick to their guns though on earlier pay for players. Raise the league minimum to $1M/year. As we have seen, not just poor teams tank, many mid market teams tank as well. Raising that league minimum will lessen the advantage that younger players have on mid to low level veterans. This will encourage more of them to forgo tanking and try to be competitive year in and year out. Plus, tanking is cyclical. Many of the teams spending big dollars this off season prior to the lock out were teams tanking in previous seasons. Rays and Pirates may never spend big, but the Rangers and Tigers have and will. Players should also push for free agency at 6 years OR 29.5 years of age. This will also address tanking in that it might affect how long a team can keep its young talent together as a core. Also addresses service time manipulation, in that teams are going to be less likely to hold a player back if they are going to lose him at a fixed age anyways.
I hold no delusions that the owners and players will behave rationally during this process. And if they are not planning on meeting until late January, the start of the season is almost certainly in jeopardy. My guess in the contest is 3/15, for now I will hold on that because neither the owners or players will fret too much over a few missed games in April. Would also give them 6-8 weeks to hammer out an agreement. I hope it is earlier but not holding my breath.
All teams can spend more than they do. The top teams can spend $300 million on player payroll and still make a profit. Even the bottom 3 in revenue are at or above $250 million in total revenue after revenue sharing so they can all spend $125-130 million on player payroll and still make a profit.
There has to be a penalty for teams like the Pirates, who had approximately $285 million in revenue in 2021, only spending $61 million on player payroll. The fans and the other owners are ticked off about Nutting and a few other owners pocketing $10s of millions in profits when a big chunk of that comes from revenue sharing. The Pirates are not tanking to compete, they are spending that little to line Nutting’s pocket.
The CBT was a huge loss for the players in the last CBA and it is not one they are willing to negotiate much on. Especially when so many teams have treated the CBT threshold as a hard cap.
We be in TROUBLE…
Meanwhile what happens to older stars like Scherzer, whilst they wait and have no spring training?
They will have spring training eventually, and they all have their offseason workout routines. They’ve lost access to the team fields, but they have access to non MLB facilities too.
If fans are having difficulty now, wait until actual negotiations begin in earnest, then we’ll get reports of one or both sides walking out of scheduled meetings, each side leaking details to make the other side look worse. It’s going to get really unpleasant. And then it will suddenly get better.
This whole thing makes both sides look like school kids procrastinating until the last minute to do their homework. Both sides knew when the CBA would expire the day they signed the previous CBA. They could have negotiated via Zoom during the 2020 lockdown. There was never a need to wait until this point in time and if the season is affected, some of us who remember the 1994-95 strike may not be as forgiving as we were last time.
That’s how complicated negotiations work. Parties need to have their backs against the wall. Look at past sports cable TV airing rights deals. Prior to MLB.TV, there has been many a times where local fans weren’t able to see their teams play anywhere because a TV contract had expired. It’s only when consumers and advertisers rightfully uproar and make threats that a deal quickly get done. I agree that there had been ample time to hammer something out but greed trumps optics and fan sentiments.
“ greed trumps optics and fan sentiments.”
Precisely –
Exactly.
Until owners know they will be able to have fans in the stands, why on Earth would they have serious negotiation talks?
Was there anywhere that they were not able to have fans in the stands by the end of the 2021 season?
I’m all in favor of the CBT going up to $245M. When $210M was agreed upon a few years back salaries weren’t quite as ridiculous as they are now. These days it seems every back of the rotation starter or league average role player makes at least $10M per year
So, I take it,these arseholes get paid anyways…….
Gee…go figure.
Good for the players for saying no to a hard cap forever
As a ticket holder to the first two Spring Training games – this is a bummer. I was really hoping to see some baseball in February. Looks totally unlikely now.
The CBT level is an artificial cap, observed when teams don’t want to spend, and blown through when they do. The smartest way to handle it (counterintuitive, I admit) is to charge the tax…but get rid of the draft-pick penalties. Look at the Yankees this year–they may spend on a shortstop, but there’s just as much chance they will go for a short-term fix until they can promote their (far cheaper) prospects. Why does this help the larger MLB–because it’s possible you don’t have the Yankees bidding up every shortstop FA, raising the price for everyone. The players biggest priorities should be MLB minimums, service time considerations. Both players and MLB should be worried about tanking. A floor won’t do much for competitive balance–the tanking teams will just take on over-priced dead-money contracts and buy prospects that way.. If you want to take aim at tanking, reduce the draft-pick rewards for being terrible year in and year out.
Based on what I am hearing the union say, I believe disincentivizing tanking is a big part of what they are trying to accomplish. MLB should be on the same page on this issue, but they aren’t, and the reason is the tanking team owners still get their revenue sharing (plus their high draft picks).
I agree with you, although the MLBPA tanking argument comes across (or is characterized by their opponents) largely as a way of increasing salaries. But it really is a systemic issue…tanking teams not only cheat their own fans, but also can impact the integrity of the standings, depending on who they play and when during the season.
The only interest the union has in ‘tanking’ is to force teams in a rebuild to waste money on players that they don’t need or want, just to artificially inflate salaries. The union could care less about competitiveness in MLB. In fact, the union spent years fighting any effort at revenue sharing,.
The union’s claims about ‘doing it for the game’ and ‘doing it for the owners’ are as phoney as the teachers unions who claim to be going on strike ‘for the kids’.
No club should be rewarded or penalized for choosing not to spend money in a rebuild.
Let’s go with your last sentence: “No club should be rewarded or penalized for choosing not to spend money in a rebuild.” I’d agree with both sides of that…provided you did both sides. Don’t reward, don’t penalize. Right now, all MLB is doing is rewarding.
Precisely. I see so much effort to manufacture cynical explanations for the positions being taken by the MLBPA, and so little to understand the situation in terms of the game we patronize as fans. As a fan I have zero investment in maximizing owner profits. What I care about is the game, and I don’t see teams deliberately built to lose as being good for the game in any way, shape or form.
But, teams that lose should be penalized. For example, teams that lose should get lower draft picks, not higher. Teams should not get revenue sharing, and teams should not be eligible for high draft-pick compensation, ie, pick CB #31-Rd 2, pick 1.
Flat out wrong. The perfect example is the Pirates. They had $285 million in revenue, meaning they would have spent $140-145 million and still made a profit. They spent $61. Not to tank to get picks or to rebuild, because draft picks are a crap shoot and one that doesn’t help your team for 3-5 years. They did it to line the owners pocket. Period.
Of course the players want more teams to be more competitive, because that will make them more money, and it also makes the game better for fans.
How would you like to be a Pirates fan coming into the season knowing that your team is not even trying to take a shot at having a winning season. Not because they don’t have the money. Just because the owner wants to take more profit. How is that good for the game?
So they spend $140-145m and win 70-75 games instead of 61 and still miss the playoffs. Whoop tee do.
The MLBPA opposes a hard cap and a salary floor. So forget about that one.
The MLBPA is in favor of a salary floor. They are just not in favor of a salary floor if it comes along with a salary cap of $180 million
Manfred / MLB / MLBPA time to get serious with negotiations, lock yourselves up in a meeting room, and don’t come out until a new CBA is resolved. Manfred get over yourself just because Rosenthal criticized your job performance.
Raising the CBT only helps the big spenders and further harms the competitive balance.
No, it insists on reforms for the franchises to catch up with/match the market. If ownership has to change so that teams can compete, then so be it.
For the owners to get their CBT ask, they’d have to raise the salary floor to $100M without any hard cap.
They need a much higher minimum salary; free agency after 5 years or 29 years old; raise the tax, but do away with losing draft picks; raise the salary cap, and cons up with a minimum that each team must hit.
What a load.
Tanking is directly related to draft picks, not CBT.
The CBT was designed to keep rich teams from way outspending the poorer teams. Only a few incur the tax (3?). So….wtf?
So those really rich teams will now do just that even more so.
Baseball players already make too.much money. Maybe you don’t know, $550K is lot of money to us normal people.
So is the money it takes to go the game and also the extra fee for sports on cable.
Maybe the Manfreds, and Billy Crystals of the world don’t understand that……
Rich people like Billy Crystal don’t give a rats arse what they are doing to baseball or America. What does.he care as long as he gets his face on TV?
How do you figure baseball players make too much money? Are you basing that on the guys you see getting huge nine figure contracts? If that’s you’re only basis then sure I could see how you came to that conclusion because some of those guys aren’t particularly deserving of their contracts. Also remember that those guys were likely well underpaid in the early years of their careers leading them to try to make up for that when finally hitting free agency.
Also explain this one. In every other competitive job field it’s reasonable to expect who people who possess elite skills will make good money. Why would that be any different in sports? If you’re comparing MLB players who are in the top 1% of their field in the entire world to the average person in a non competitive field then you simply don’t live in reality
These are all billion dollar franchises owned by millionaires and billionaires. There should be no redistribution of wealth. Infinite businesses out there to own for strictly profit sake. If you own a team, spend the money to compete or sell the team to someone who is willing to spend!
Passan is a narrative-chasing clown. I don’t trust a word he says
Think evolutionary rather than revolutionary:
1) Increase the CBT cap by 5% a year to keep pace with historical salary increases. Ditto for the MLB minimum salary.
2) Leave free agency alone at 6 yrs. Teams need to have some time to develop players rather than serving as a farm system for the high spending teams.
3) Instead, make players eligible for arbitration after two seasons rather than three. Get rid of Super Two.
4) Address service time manipulation by defining “two seasons” as 1-2/3 seasons (meaning on the 25 man roster by June 1 and staying there).
5) Encourage arbitrators to mark the players to market based on performance (with some discount that it is only over 2 or 3 years, not 5 years of consistency).
6) Change the rule that prevents player salaries from being reduced in arbitration. If they are marked to market on the way up,, they need to be revised if performance slips. Cap the decline at 25% or so.
7) Address tanking by changing the draft to an NBA-style lottery where every non playoff team gets at least one lottery ticket. The worst team still gets the highest chance for the #1 pick, but is far from guaranteed.
A lot of this makes sense but I would actually change the market based performance to a pool – that would get both the players and the mlb on board since if all teams pay into a pool where performance bonuses are guaranteed across all teams and the pay in can be based on the team value rather than the profits or payrolls. I don’t see the tax or the money to younger players moving without some kind of handoff to the mlb because they seem to be set on one or the other when it has to be both or none since if you pay more to players earlier it upsets older players that won’t get paid out and if you raise the cap there will still be service manipulation and underpayment
I like most of what you say. Just a few points. On service time, make it simple. If you play more than say 2 months in the majors its a year of service time. That is about 53-54 games on the roster. I doubt teams will hold out a player until August just to get an extra year of service time.
The MLBPA would not go for a 25% drop in salary in arbitration, but you might get them to go for a 10% drop. Just not for injury related loss of playing time. That would be a non-starter. It is also ridiculous to see guys with a negative WAR getting increases in pay in arbitration. There needs to be some balance there.
A lottery type draft is coming, both sides want some kind of lottery, but that will not address tanking. The only thing that can is in 2 parts.
#1 is a change in revenue sharing. With the top teams in baseball over $600 million in revenue and the bottom 3 around $250 million after taking into account revenue sharing as its currently constituted, the biggest problem is that disparity. #2 is a salary floor. Get all teams up to around $300 million in revenue and then require a $135-140 million floor.
Making it a set number of games for a player to be credited with a full year of service time is just going to change the time of year at which manipulation is done. No, that doesn’t mean teams are going to wait until August to call up players who they feel are ready to be called up at the start of the season. But if they make the decision that the player is ready in July or even late June, THEN they might wait until August to call him up.
There is a couple of things we need to keep in mind. Baseball is simply entertainment. They do not produce a product that will affect us in any way. With or without them. Do I love baseball. Yes. I played it in high school and played softball as an adult. But let’s keep in mind that players make more than doctors do. Some players are making $30MM a year. Most doctors that are keep our country alive make less than $500K per year. These players are not going to cure cancer and develop rockets that defend our country. Their only skill is they can hit a ball or throw a ball better than 99.9% of us. That’s their total contribution to society. MLBPA is complaining they don’t make enough. I think the only players that are getting cheated are the minor league players. Most make less than $30K per year. People keep complaining about the rookies being underpaid. If you are on the 25 man roster, even the ones that never play, are still making $600K per year. 99% of Americans would love to make $600K per year yet they are unpaid?? Really!!!! As for the owners, yes they are a bunch of billionaires. Somehow in every business in the world, it’s ok for the owner of the company to make the most money. But somehow that is not supposed to apply to baseball. The owners invested and their money is at stake. They bear all the risk and should make the most money.
That being said, I think we should go to a production based system. Players are handicapping teams with their huge salaries that don’t match their production. Owners are cheating younger players by underpaying them compared to the production they are receiving. A production based system would reward players for their accomplishments and penalize player for their lack of production. Draft should be an alternating system. Last place get the 1st pick, the best team gets the 2nd pick, etc. The middle of the pack will end up picking last. Under the current system, teams are penalized for winning.
In the end, us fans are the ones paying the players. High ticket prices. People talk about TV Revenue. Where does TV revenue come from? Us fans. That’s why cable TV prices are raising so they can pay the teams $50MM for TV rights.
Basically, all these raises are being paid by us. Do you think anyone deserves $30MM for hitting a ball. I don’t.
Heck, fire all the player and bring up minor leaguers at a reasonable price, Some will become stars one day and that way we can all start to afford going to the games.
This is economic nonsense. The owners create rules to disincentivize themselves from spending what they would otherwise spend on player salaries, but that isn’t enough, they also demand rules that reward them for fielding lousy teams. What we pay has absolutely nothing to do with how much they spend, it has everything to do with how much we’re willing to pay for this product.
Can we stop with the Doctors make “X” and players make “X”, and baseball is just a game? Given the right education, a lot of people can be taught to be doctors. You cannot teach someone to throw 99mph, or hit a ML pitch 450 feet. Their skills are the rarest of the rare. Their job isn’t like my work, nor yours’, nor the average Joe or Jill.
Baseball isn’t just a game to players, either. It’s their profession. It’s not just 9 innings, it’s also training and media, missed time with families and a lot of travel. That’s what they sign up for going in, but it’s also why it’s quite fair they demand more money. If they don’t perform, they get cut. That’s far from just a game. Games don’t have real consequences for those involved.
Trying to compare salaries of a player and doctor is a specious argument. THE most valuable commodity to Americans is entertainment.
We gladly pay $15 plus $10 for a bucket of popcorn to see a movie. Acting is much easier of a skill and takes less training, but we don’t say that actor made $30 million for that film and my doctor only makes $500k. We just talk about if we enjoyed the film or not.
Do you enjoy watching baseball? Well MLB is a $12 billion industry with most of that coming from TV, streaming, and subscription services.
There are 1200 people on the 40 man rosters of MLB teams and at any one point there are 780 players on MLB rosters. Last year 934 people played at least one game in MLB. Some of those really were not skilled enough to be there. Out of 7 billion.
In the history of the game, stretching back to the 1800s, there have been less than 23,000 players. Out of 21 billion that have lived during that time frame.
Are you starting to get an inkling of how rare the skills of a MLB player are?
People with skills that rare get paid regardless of what they are doing.
You CAN’T hit that ball. Or throw it 100 mph. You also won’t pay to see people that are not that good perform in MLB. We know that because no one did when MLB brought scabs on the field to replace striking players. We all stayed home. The TV ratings plummeted. Some TV stations refused to pay MLB for those games and others just refused to broadcast the games. How many minor league games have you attended? Would you have paid MLB prices to go to those handful of minor league games you may have attended over the years? The answer is no. No one would. We pay to see the best of the best.
So until you can either do it or pay MLB rates to see inferior talent, you have no room to talk.
Just stop with the BS about player not deserving to get paid. They do. In a sport with that much revenue, for the players to only get 1/3 of that revenue is ridiculous.
The top star in a film often gets paid as much as everyone else involved with the film, including the producer, combined. No one complains about them getting paid. Not even you.
I could go one. Suffice to say that everything you said was incorrect. Not even a good take. Just an old man saying “get off my lawn.”
The free market argument for baseball is just so much lazy-fair.
Baseball is not a free market, it’s a completely closed market, in which the owners are allowed to collude to limit how much they have to pay for labor. In a free market, players would get paid however much the team that pays them the most money offers. Forget the draft, with its selection order and slot values. In a free market this is totally unnecessary and counterproductive. Amateurs would take the most lucrative offer they receive. Forget arbitration, after their draft contract is fulfilled, players become free agents who can shop themselves for what the market will bear.
Would player salaries skyrocket under such a system? Sure they would. You want a free market? There’s your free market, or a least as free as it can be given the ownership structure.
All in favor? What, no hands? Not even among the lazy-fairs?
Dude, you do realize that top actors make $30 million PER MOVIE or over $1 million PER EPISODE on TV, right? So a ballplayer that has a much harder job making $30 million per season is really no big deal. Especially when MLB as a whole made over $12 billion in 2021 and that is with the stands half empty for part of the season.
The tanking charge is the most ridiculous claim by the media and Scott Boras. Why? I never hear that accusation concerning the NFL, NBA or NHL and all of those sports are more subject to tanking then MLB. Why? Because it is far more likely you can get a player who can step in and immediately change the direction of your franchise then in MLB where player X must spend time in the minors. That is why Murray is playing for Arizona Cardinals instead of in the minor league system of the Oakland A’s.
Fans unite! Cancel your spring training reservations. Don’t buy MLB game tickets. Don’t buy merchandise. Support your local minor league, independent league, American Legion, Babe Ruth, or Little League teams instead.
Why punish ourselves? I enjoy baseball, realize my attending or not has little impact on the teams, since most money comes from guaranteed deals, and understand that like all unionized businesses, deals never happen until the last moment. Relax, baseball will be back eventually, and real fans can then get back to watching the games. Ifjit takes until 2023, ok, see you then.
It’s never a punishment to watch and support baseball, even when it’s not MLB.
MLB owns the minors leagues now. Support your local college team instead.
Or independent leagues.
Go VT Lake Monsters!
It’s hard to enjoy lower level”s of baseball like the Lake monsters when I know I am as good as the product on the field.
I keep telling people Manfred hates baseball. His main purpose is to destroy baseball and is doing everything he can to do it.
Yeah, I guess this must be what the owners want.
I think both sides want to show each other that they are willing to cost regular season games to get what they want. I’m predicting an 81 game season. Once even a spring training game is lost from their stubbornness I’ll be out until 2023.
Dierkes, you’re a better writer than this line suggests: “As I’ll explain, that’d represent the union’s biggest failure yet in increasing the CBT.”
“Failure”. The media is so fixated on who wins or loses. Both sides know this and are desperate to “win” for their side. You have a new commissioner and salty players who were viewed as “losing” the last CBA.
What’s lost is that the only people who truly “lose” are the fans. My wife and I were planning on taking our two young boys to Spring Training this year but obviously that’s not a good plan right now.
These guys don’t own the game of baseball, we all do. They get the privilege of playing in front of us and we pay for them to do so. “Failure” is not not 4 or 5 percent, “failure” is losing perspective of the grand game of baseball and the aggregate damage that may come from all of this.
If their inability to negotiate like adults causes my sons, the future gen of baseball fans, to not see baseball games, that’s a bad thing.
I think you are reading into my word choice to find something I’m not saying.
Failure generally means there’s a goal and it was not met.
I also think that while each side wants to win, what they’re trying to win is money. A greater slice of the pie. I also think the media has a negligible effect on this, perhaps approaching zero.
I believe both sides are fully prepared to cancel games if they feel that’s necessary. They are fighting over money and disappointing fans is just not their primary concern.
As I’m sure you know, the fans’ only vote in this is with their wallets. If this power struggle pisses you off to the point of not attending MLB games or otherwise spending money on MLB stuff, more power to ya. I’m sure you wouldn’t be alone in that.
In the FWIW department, only if you watch on TV or buy tickets to the games a la carte can you effectively boycott the sport. Those of us who hold season tickets are along for the ride, wherever it happens to go.
@BlueSkies_LA
Are you contractually prevented from canceling your season tickets and contractually bound to purchase them in the future?
Typically, if you want to keep your seats and seniority, you have to purchase your season tickets in November. By the time the owners locked out the players, that money was already spent. The refund procedure varies from team to team, but I cannot cancel them for a full refund after November 30th. I can not attend the games or sell them individually, but the money is spent at that point.
@outinleftfield. You get it. Not so many years ago we were able to wait until December to decide and ante up, but the Dodgers have since moved up the renewal and full payment date to September. Now the following season renewal comes at the same time postseason ticket payments are due. This season ticket is an old one with a lot of seniority. You can’t decide to skip a year and get back in, not at Dodger Stadium, at least not anymore. After a season with no games, followed by a season where the stadium didn’t completely open back up until midseason, and one coming up with who knows what, I feel like we season ticket holders are getting the fuzzy end of the pickle.
I appreciate your opinion Tim and truly understand that at the end of the day, this is about money.
I’m going to disagree with you that the media has a negligible role here and will look no further than Ken Rosenthal. Both sides use the media as a vehicle to get their respective message out considering as stated in MLBTR, there are no CBA sessions currently scheduled. That “message” is certainly open to subjectivity.
I do appreciate these chats and personally know (as I’m sure you do as well) that baseball “insiders” read MLBTR.
Manfred nor the players will keep me from the game I played and loved and my wife and boys are right there with me. I coach both of my boys, my wife is the Little League VP, and we all love the game.
Ultimately I think most fans understand the division and there needs to be heavy negotiation. But for there not to be anything scheduled and already threaten Spring Training games? Not acceptable. Rob Manfred is key to the negotiations and while I originally stood up for him, he’s lost me and an army of fans.
“I believe both sides are fully prepared to cancel games if they feel that’s necessary. They are fighting over money and disappointing fans is just not their primary concern.”
Bluntly stated, but absolutely correct. It’s a business with the sides negotiating over enormous amounts of money. They have every right to do that…and we have every right to not patronize the game, if we want to. The fact that the vast majority of us won’t is something they are able to count on.
MLB has already extended their major television contracts with Fox, Turner, and ESPN for the next seven years. The deals are heavily tilted to bring in revenue during the post season. The deal with ESPN slashes the number of regular season games by two thirds, and has already built in provisions for them to carry the new first round of expanded playoffs.
That’s what the owners want in this deal. That, and to hold the line on concessions to players. So they offer token increases in the CBT threshold and minimum salary levels.
The players will give them expanded playoffs- no real reason not to (tanking arguments notwithstanding), but it’s a matter of what they can extract in exchange. The universal DH isn’t going to cut it, as we know.
MLB, having settled their revenue streams, has much less to lose by canceling regular season games. This is a major factor in the owners’ tactic of not negotiating until the pressure of losing games becomes more real.
When it comes to the CBT threshold, the owners started at $180 million with no increase per year. The players started at $255 million with an increase tied to inflation.
In December owners were at $214 million with a 1% increase per year and and the players countered with $245 million with a 3% increase per year.
Settle at $230 with 2% increase per year. One point settled. NEXT!!
@Pads Fans: Precisely. That’s the purpose of negotiating. Not to stubbornly stick to your numbers, but to compromise for win/win outcomes. Seems as though neither side understands the concept.
The subtext to this strategy of postponing negotiations instead of working on them now is, basically: “We don’t trust you to negotiate in good faith, so we’re going to try to pressure you into capitulation.”
These owners won’t even pretend that they want Major League Baseball to be something closer to a professional partnership between owners and players. They’d rather play chicken and dare the players to use their only leverage — a player strike.
With COVID going nuts again the challenges have changed. For players they want to be paid in 2022, for owners they see roughly the first 100 games as ‘so what’ now. Drastic change in the balance of power. I expect the players to demand full pay for 2022 and beyond, regardless of games played (outside of a strike/lockout) while owners put in a stronger luxury tax, stronger draft rules, universal DH, and expanded playoffs. Players might get a higher minimum salary, and maximum age before reaching free agency (IE: 6 years or age 30 to start). Players will fight for 5 1/2 years to remove some of the incentive to hold guys down for a month but the price would be a lower luxury tax I suspect. Given all of this I expect things to be resolved before March, but not by a lot unless players have registered a LOT of their leverage is going away thanks to COVID. If too many players think COVID won’t remove owners incentives to settle then we’re looking at a late July/early August start ala 2020.
The players want the DH in the NL. It’ll create more jobs.
the league wants them, too.
The players though are trying to make it a thing owners want as some pitchers enjoy hitting and don’t want to lose that. Really, for players it is a no-lose situation with the DH – keep it as is and some pitchers will be happy, go universal and some hitters will be. Owners want to use it to keep guys healthier so they don’t need as many backups. I suspect some owners would like to go to an NFL type defensive and offense lineups. Maybe even with dedicated runners. More players, but also fewer injuries to stars (all Jay fans want to close their eyes when Springer runs towards the wall for example).
Nice post jnorthey
Wish my union was as good as the mlbpa.
Here’s a baseline idea (keyword baseline)
To improve competition, institute a salary floor and a salary cap like every. other. league. has.
Then start the service clock when a player is added to the 40-man roster, and hit free agency in 5 years. Incremental increases for every year of service. Also include a caveat that no player under 22 is eligible for the Rule 5 draft to prevent prospects who are still far away from the majors eating up half of the team control in the minor leagues (i.e. Jorbit Vivas, Luis Garcia)
1st year: $600k, 2nd year: $750k, 3rd year: $900k, 4th year, $1m, 5th year: Arbitration to set the table for free agent earnings, while dumping option years. Players can be optioned until the fourth year when they are on a set salary.
Owners win because they get a salary cap, they’re rid of arbitration prices and hearings until the last year, and they get to avoid paying past their prime players mega-deals.
Players win because they get rid of service time manipulation, a more competitive landscape and they hit free agency at a much younger age.
Also, dumping “out of options” helps out the guys on the fringes like middle relievers and bench guys, as they’ll be able to stay on major league rosters, without teams shying away due to having to keep them on the active roster all season.
If they’re going to fix Rule 5 issues then make it so anyone recovering from Tommy John surgery is automatically protected until they’re back to pitching. So dumb to let teams steal a good pitching prospect and then be able to put them on the IL.
^^ This is a great idea
MLB teams don’t like losing talent unnecessarily, so history says that whenever a weakness is found in the Rule5 draft that teams can exploit, enough of the other owners/GMs will look to close it. Even the teams that exploited it most recently will vote to close it. They benefitted this time, but they know they could be the victim next time. The MLBPA, however, won’t willing want to change a rule that might get a minor leaguer to the majors more quickly, but they won’t (and haven’t) fought changes too hard because they don’t represent minor leaguers, and in reality, any Rule 5 minor leaguer is going to displace an already existing union member.
I have noticed more teams willing to make Rule 5 picks who are players recovering from TJS, only just recovered, or are still in the lower minors because of prior injuries. There probably should be some way that the teams that invested in them, coached them, paid for their surgery and rehabbed them, get more time to hold those players, even it’s just one additional year, before they are Rule 5 eligible.
Read the other comments. You will see clearly why a salary cap in baseball is impossible. You do realize that some players have made $10 million in a year you have earmarked as $1 million. That is a non-starter.
Baseball doesn’t need a salary cap. The only thing caps serve to do is suppress player salaries. They don’t create parity, as some believe. The reason I like baseball over other sports is mostly the game, but partly because there is no cap. Few things they do would ever sour me on the game completely. They go through a work stoppage for a cap, I’m out.
The CBT hasn’t gone up much in years. It should be at $250 million now. Stop being cheapskates owners. You don’t have to spend it but at least raise it. The players probably see how the revenue has increased a lot over the years but teams won’t spend it on them. That $30 million increase is nothing.
Both sides are greedy while the minor leaguers live on very little unless you are a bonus baby. It is time figure out a way both MLB owners and players share revenues with all professional baseball players.
Players union is strong,believe that!
UR nuts.Owners need to be responsible to feed and house their employees.I know for a fact players aren’t getting the proper nutrition or rest.4 players to a 2 bed hotel to save money so they can eat crap fast food.Trust me,the minor leagues living conditions are horrendous and inhumane for 90 % of the players.Freaking owners should be penalized and forced to build housing and hire cooks and nutritionist to maximize performance.It’s horrible conditions throughout most of baseball.Angels are prime offenders!
Jeff has a pretty good grip on what the issues are, but his proposals fall short of what it will take to solve the issues.
Tweaking the draft order isn’t going to prevent tanking. Teams don’t generally stop spending to get better draft picks. They tank for money. They need to be forced to spend revenue sharing dollars on player salaries. Put the revenue sharing money into a pool that they can draw upon to pay any player salary above $ 1 million. They can keep the formula they have on the amounts paid and received- and take revenue sharing money up to that point.
The players have no interest in reducing the amount of revenue sharing- as Manfred said that they demanded. The teams that are tanking and slashing payrolls are the recipients of revenue sharing dollars. Players just need those dollars channeled into salaries.
The current CBA requires teams to spend revenue sharing dollars on improving performance on the field, but the language is shot full of loopholes. They have to be required to spend directly on player salaries- and not just those making under $1 million.
Passan proposed $ 630K minimum salary- which is fine the first year, but it should go up to $1 million over the life of the agreement.. That’s not a lot per team ($5.5 M for a team with half the roster earning minimum) compared with a hike in the CBT at the top end.
Owners proposal of only $ 214M CBT threshold, increasing to $220M, is not nearly enough. Somewhere between that and the players’ proposal of $245M, then increasing per year as it has been, is more like it.
2.5 years for arbitration eligibility (2.086 seasons vs present 2.116 this year), with all stars eligible after 2 years. Then keep free agency at 6.0 years, or 5 years at age 30.
They seem to agree on playoff expansion, the universal DH, wearing uniform patches, some tweaking of the draft, and some increase in the CBT and minimum salary. They just need amounts on the latter two issues, and they need meaningful action on tanking. Then we’ll have a new deal.
I always felt that writers saying that MLB was going to lose its fan base due to the strike back in the 90s (I was 16 so didn’t care nearly as much as I do now) was just to get eye balls on the ink. But this time, with how many other things are out there in the world to focus on for the younger generation, I do honestly believe that MLB would truly be in water if there was a prolonged work stoppage. Just my opinion, but I think it would be hard to recover from. Atleast back then baseball was still hanging on as the nation’s national past time. Now the NFL has firmly grasped that label and has not let go. Praying it doesn’t get to the point where we have to find out!
I say just get rid of the cap. Only a handful of teams would spend Willy nilly. Trying to keep teams competitive that refuse to spend money is the problem. Put in a floor. You’re already giving these teams extra draft picks. You’re motivating to not spend money by giving them these early round compensation picks.
Contract the pirates and maybe another team because Pittsburgh can’t support a major league team it’s not a major league market . Give them a double a team in the process labor issues resolved
“MLB is working on proposals to bring to the table.” Passan’s sources believe the “earliest negotiations will ramp up this time is late January.”
They are Jerking Around
Complete incompetence
You have a Commissioner, who lacks integrity, character and above all leadership and you expect him to negotiate with a Union, led by someone who doesn’t have the qualities that allow him to understand the complexity of the situation. Unless you change the faces at the table, we can’t expect these two to get anything resolved.
As a baseball fan, I’m disappointed but above all my love for the game has been tarnished forever and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one thinking the same thing
Shame on both sides. Considering where we are right now, both should do us a favour and step down immediately
OTOH, it’s been almost 30 years since we had a work stoppage, and by most accounts, the game is still going strong. How about we let them do their jobs before declaring them a failure.
I have no use for Clark, but I’d also make a wager (a really small one), that he and the union have a plan and some targets.
It is mind boggling that there is a possibility that the season might be delayed. We have a pandemic going on, and live in a polarized society and fewer people are interested in baseball. Even the diehards here are going to move on to other things if baseball does not begin their season on time,
Or…the majority of people won’t care that much and will watch it when it returns.
I don’t think we’re having a season this year. Go out and enjoy some indy baseball.
@Old York This seems like a nightmare scenario, but I do agree that it’s possible. If so, it’ll be interesting to see what happens to all these teams that just splurged on mega contracts. The Scherzer deal in particular would go down as one of the worst in history if he just misses a full season because of a failed CBA.
Will there be no season? I think it would be ridiculous of them to no do it, so it will probably end up happening but I have my doubts. Yes, that would be a bad signing but that’s the risk they take.
“Compared to that $189MM point, the 2017-21 CBA ended with an 11.1% bump to get to $210MM.”
=====================================
Which us full circle as to why the contract was so idiotic to begin with. I don’t expect everyone to be a mathematician, but everyone in the country should know that this is a roughly 2% increase.
This isn’t some page 48 reference to international spending penalties. Everyone knew about the 2%.
No Joe. 11.1% isn’t “a roughly 2% increase”. 11.1% is more than 5x that. Closer to 6.
2% per year.
Nothing here seems insurmountable, but this still could lead to a prolonged strike if both sides view this as a critical inflection point. It may be less about dollars today than directionally where this will lead in the future and much more dollars. The owners won’t want to lose what they’ve gained, while the players will want to shift the momentum. That means what appears like surmountable gaps could be viewed by both sides as critical. If so, this could go on longer than most expect.
How would competitive integrity be measured? Could you have objective baselines that would satisfy the players and the owners?? Transparency of operations would be key to help with such decision making….would the teams allow such insights into their operations??
If it goes into ST and on into the Regular Season then I think I am finished! I’ve been a Cardinals fan since childhood and I’m in my sixties now. I am sick and tired of both sides and their wining! I found myself watching a lot less ball after 2020 season and I have quit watching the NFL all together! It’s time all of them remembered that without the fans they have nothing! JMO
We need hackers to infiltrate and copy financial reports of every MLB franchise, MLB corporate, MLBPA, and dump all data for public review. This would create additional pressure on both sides. And while they are at it, reveal every tax haven, domestic and int’l, used by owners and players. Without the data, we are all shooting at wisps and shadows. So Russia, if you’re out there, provide a useful public service, for once.
The league to hold firm in the CBT. It’s bad for baseball to have the same teams in the playoffs each year. The salary cap is why the NFL is so much more relevant than MLB. I prefer a cap like the NFL and perhaps a minimum which would be a new concept and keep owners from being too cheap.
It’s bad for baseball to have the same teams in the playoffs each year.
=====================================
I think it is exactly the opposite of what you think it is. IIRC, this is 8 years with 8 different WSCs. I doubt any sport has that many different winners.
No to expanded playoffs.
NYR will win the cup before baseball even gets going. June earliest.
The players need to stand strong and refuse any deal that doesn’t include a salary floor and doesn’t reduce playing for teams FOR SEVEN YEARS in arbitration time.
MLB needs to be smart and add more playoff games. More games, more profit.
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